Three Easy Ways to Boost Protein in Your Picky Kid’s Diet

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I’m forever stressing the importance of eating protein to my pickiest eater. He’s six years old now, and I still struggle to get the right foods into his body. This Fall he started playing football, and now it’s more important to me than ever that he eats protein-rich foods to keep his stamina up through all of the practices and games.

The problem is, he doesn’t really like a lot of things, unless they’re cookies or candy, of course. But, those things aren’t going to sustain him through hours of running plays. At first I struggled to find high-protein foods that he would even eat. I tried forcing him to eat things, and he’s more stubborn than me! Over time we’ve gotten to a point where I feel good about what he’s eating, and he is happy about it too. If you’re struggling to get a few more grams of protein into your kids’ diets, here’s some tips that might help.

Let them choose their foods. I don’t give him a free pass to pick whatever food he wants for our meals, but I give some options, and then let him decide what we should to eat. Since he’s the pickiest eater, sometimes letting him pick what we’re all eating gives him a sense of pride, and he’s more likely to eat it himself. “Should we have chicken, or fish for dinner tonight?” Sometimes he doesn’t really want anything I offer, but I ask him to still choose which he would prefer over the others.

Teach them nutritional facts. One thing that really made a difference in even getting him to just try new foods, was having him look at the nutritional information when we were shopping in the grocery store. Since he’s young, and I don’t want to have him obsess over food, I just have him look at the protein count of his snacks only. (I take care of picking the meals) When choosing snacks for the week from the store, he has to have at least 10 grams of protein in the cart. It can be combined between two snacks, or all in one, it doesn’t matter, as long as over the course of the day his snacks equal 10 grams of protein.

Give them something they love. It takes a little observation, but after a while you’ll be able to see which high-protein foods your child loves the most. Then, just make them available as much as possible. There is no reason to fight them on it. If they want to eat the same lunch every day, and it isn’t bad for them, why change anything?

One thing all four of my kids are loving right now are these homemade high-protein brownie bars. They love protein bars, but I wanted to control what was in them, and make them as simple as possible. I used simple protein-rich ingredients, like eggs, almond meal and oat flour, and upgraded them with Orgain Organic Protein Almond Milk® to add even more protein.

I grabbed it at Walmart while I was picking up a new duffel bag for all of the football gear we’ve already accumulated this year. It’s found with the other shelf-stable boxed milks, usually near the baking stuff. You can save $1.50 off of one container by printing out this coupon too!) If you happen to be in your Walmart between October 1st and 4th, look for the in-store demo so you can try it right there on the spot!

Orgain Organic Protein Almond Milk® is what almond milk should be! It’s a rich, organic almond milk drink with 10 times more protein than the leading almond milk brands. It tastes great on it’s own, with a one-cup serving having 10 grams of protein in it. For my football-playing son, that’s exactly what he needs!

It’s also great for upgrading your bowl of cereal, or your favorite baking recipes, by adding a little protein boost. And that’s exactly what I did with these super easy to throw together High-Protein Brownie Bars. They’re by no means a typical protein bar, but rather a yummy brownie with a boost of extra protein.

High-Protein Brownie Bars

Ingredients:

2/3 cup oat flour (ground oats, measure after grinding)

2/3 cup almond meal/flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 cup sunflower seed butter

1/2 cup gmo-free cane sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup of Orgain Organic Protein Almond Milk®

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, mix together oat flour, almond meal, and cocoa powder. Stir with a fork to get some of the lumps out. In a larger bowl, beat the sugar, sunflower seed butter and eggs together until they look creamy. Add the Orgain Organic Protein Almond Milk®, mix well. Dump in the dry ingredients and mix for a minute or so until everything is smooth and combined. Pour into a greased 9×13 baking dish. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cut into 12 bars while still warm and then let cool completely. The bars will shrink down a little bit when they’re cooled.

Adding Orgain Organic Protein Almond Milk® is a great upgrade to almond milk! Don’t forget to grab the coupon! For more great upgrades and recipes connect with Orgain on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

About Angela

Angela has been writing since she could hold a crayon. These days she writes from her living room amidst the chaos of a house that looks like it was visited by a tornado of toys and clothes. When she's not saying "keep your body parts off of your brother," she enjoys cooking gourmet meals for the harshest seven-year-old food critic in town, tuning out the blasting volume of the television, traveling all over the country with and without her family, and running through a Lego obstacle course with bare feet.

I have been using almond milk a LOT more in my house. Those brownie bars look awesome. Pinning this post to make them later for my boys. They may not be picky, but they like things they can just grab and eat.

Thank you! My 9 year old decided he doesn’t want to eat meat anymore and I’ve been looking for other ways to give him protein beyond nut, milk, and the common sources. I will be looking for these on my next shopping trip!

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Angela has been writing since she could hold a crayon. These days she writes from her living room amidst the chaos of a house that looks like it was visited by a tornado of toys and clothes. When she's not saying "keep your body parts off of your brother," she enjoys cooking gourmet meals for the harshest seven-year-old food critic in town, tuning out the blasting volume of the television, traveling all over the country with and without her family, and running through a Lego obstacle course with bare feet. Read More…